Ana Bekoach: The Power of Kabbalah and Jewish Prayer

Written in Israel in the first century by the great Kabbalistic sage, Rabbi Nehonia, the Ana Bekoach Prayer was penned according to the seventy names of God. It is composed of seven lines, with six words in each. Of each word the first letter is taken, creating therefore a 42-letter name – which holds much Kabbalistic significance, evoking the Jewish patriarch, Avraham.

A little known fact is the combination of Ana Bekoach is hidden in the first 42 letters of the book of Genesis (From the word BERESHIT to the word BABOHOO). These letters are translated by way of a secret kabbalistic calculation.

The Ana Bekoach prayer is said during both the Shacharit (morning) and Mincha (afternoon) prayers, as well as the Shabbat prayer before Lecha Dodi.

According to some sources another portrayal of the Ana Bekoach is the seven branch Menorah. According to legend, before going into battle, King David meditated on it for hours.

The model was created after one of King David's dreams.

When we meditate on the Hebrew letters it is not as much a human activity as a supernatural act, in which we are able to break down the barriers of our natural existence and we delve into the world of divinity. You see, every single letter is like a garment given to us to wear. When we concentrate on these letters, their shapes dissolve and the Holiness becomes revealed.

In Jewish prayer, a meditation on the letters and their combinations, we write them with our very breath and put them in the mouth in five places, so we may carefully pronounce each letter of the five families. We write them with breath, meditating on each letter, meditating on the breath exhaled while being pronounced. We set them in the mouth, meditating on the place in the mouth with which the letter is pronounced.

While speech itself involves a consciousness of understanding, the pronunciation of the letters is a mechanical activity; therefore it involves the consciousness of wisdom.

 Article by: Michal